The Bud Thread

[Hawkpeter]

I don't know why, but the guy just keeps churning out material. He deserves his own dedicated thread.

Bless him, he's pretty much the only person even trying to produce prose on weightlifting - part technical conjecture, part competition commentary, highly tangential, and there is plenty of yelling at clouds, but I hope he never changes.

Here's another banger. Allegory, credentialism, another fully fledged attack on pro-sport preparation, and among that a genuine problem raised regarding the lack of critical rationalism in the face of content specific orthodoxy in learning.

https://www.sportivnypress.com/2023/a-d ... e-is-less/

[brian.degennaro]

These articles related to general "sport science" are such a chore to get through. I swear much of his prose is from just looking at a thesaurus and replacing words with the biggest or least commonly used synonyms. I am not sure what the purpose of these articles are (besides yelling at clouds and being anti-West), whom the audience is supposed to be, and why he is writing them. Some of the premises I completely agree with but he is not actually offering any explanation beyond citing the "founding fathers of Soviet weightlifting and mechanics," and not providing a single solution to these problems in weightlifting or sport science besides "do the lifts to their fullest ROM." The problem with attacking dogma (professional sport systems/tradition/fads) is you cannot do so with more dogma (Soviet weightlifting/biomechanics).

I also cannot get over how he will cite his own articles as if they have been subject to scientific rigor and support. I had a laugh that someone on Reddit citing Bud as a "top US sport scientist" in several comments. I do not think anyone besides Bud refers to himself as a sport scientist. I do not doubt he dabbles in science and is knowledgeable, but besides the EWF magazine, self publishing, and one article from 1986 in the NSCAJ he is not a scientist. His daughter has been subjected to greater scientific rigor than he has.

His articles a decade or more ago are significantly better, and I wish to see a return with those types of competition reports as well as articles akin to "Relative Value of Back Squats," "Relative Value of Pulling Exercises," and "Essential Components of Technique." I personally would prefer to discuss those articles. Hell, even the "Asian style of pulling" and "Russian Lifting" are okay.

Alas, I doubt we will because Bud has taken the mask off and applied his biases throughout everything he writes as of late. I still cannot get over how he completely omitted the W71 from the 2019 competition report. Not a single mention about the category or the US athletes going 1-2 in the total. At the least a comment in his usual style such as "an unremarkable non-Olympic class, with no athletes of note participating, paving the way for US 'victory.'"

[Hawkpeter]

His articles a decade or more ago are significantly better, and I wish to see a return with those types of competition reports as well as articles akin to "Relative Value of Back Squats," "Relative Value of Pulling Exercises," and "Essential Components of Technique." I personally would prefer to discuss those articles. Hell, even the "Asian style of pulling" and "Russian Lifting" are okay.

Alas, I doubt we will because Bud has taken the mask off and applied his biases throughout everything he writes as of late. I still cannot get over how he completely omitted the W71 from the 2019 competition report. Not a single mention about the category or the US athletes going 1-2 in the total. At the least a comment in his usual style such as "an unremarkable non-Olympic class, with no athletes of note participating, paving the way for US 'victory.'"

Spot on.

His thought-provoking technical articles I have greatly appreciated.

I agree its curious and a bit annoying that the more recent renaissance of US weightlifting seemingly has not been fit for any praise. Especially considering how excoriating some of his articles about the sport in the US was 10-15years ago (though much of that targeted at administration)

[strapping]

I thought someone tested positive for THC again before I remembered Charniga existed.

These articles related to general "sport science" are such a chore to get through. I swear much of his prose is from just looking at a thesaurus and replacing words with the biggest or least commonly used synonyms.

My English comprehension skills are reasonable, but this article is unnecessarily difficult. Not quite German philosophy difficult, but difficult.

His daughter has been subjected to greater scientific rigor than he has.

That's because she is in infectious epidemiology, which unlike exercise/sport science, is a real science with some level of rigor to it.

I am not sure what the purpose of these articles are (besides yelling at clouds and being anti-West), whom the audience is supposed to be, and why he is writing them. Some of the premises I completely agree with but he is not actually offering any explanation...

As mentioned previously, I think Bud is anti-West in a way that is ironically only generated by reactionary Westerners romanticising the "East" after learning about Western propaganda. I've never met an anti-West non-Westerner with the same vibe.

I personally have little issue with attacks on NSCA/ACSM/acronym acquisition things, as I feel largely the same way about accrediting bodies and their "education" (drudgery). What little I've seen of the NBA's strength and conditioning is deeply unimpressive; overcomplicated in execution but subintellectual in design, mirroring how I feel about most commercially successful (read: advertisable) strength and conditioning in general.

I'm also not a fan of the NBA's appropriation of "load management" from the world of musculoskeletal health sciences is , but I am also not a fan of the idea of getting the same people to play 80-100 games of basketball in a year. It is, technically, load management. As is, y'know doing training, which increases load. That's why it's called load management.

Never mind the fact that the missing puzzle piece in S&C is more often the C (and uncomplicated but difficult speed/CoD training).
Bud's solutions of do full ROM weightlifting are just impressively wrong; though I will say that the misuse or poor coaching of weightlifting lifts/derivatives is rife in S&C.

[brian.degennaro]

His articles a decade or more ago are significantly better, and I wish to see a return with those types of competition reports as well as articles akin to "Relative Value of Back Squats," "Relative Value of Pulling Exercises," and "Essential Components of Technique." I personally would prefer to discuss those articles. Hell, even the "Asian style of pulling" and "Russian Lifting" are okay.

Alas, I doubt we will because Bud has taken the mask off and applied his biases throughout everything he writes as of late. I still cannot get over how he completely omitted the W71 from the 2019 competition report. Not a single mention about the category or the US athletes going 1-2 in the total. At the least a comment in his usual style such as "an unremarkable non-Olympic class, with no athletes of note participating, paving the way for US 'victory.'"

Spot on.

His thought-provoking technical articles I have greatly appreciated.

I agree its curious and a bit annoying that the more recent renaissance of US weightlifting seemingly has not been fit for any praise. Especially considering how excoriating some of his articles about the sport in the US was 10-15years ago (though much of that targeted at administration)

It's probably because he has this deep rooted narrative that the US is poor at weightlifting, being behind in the times and will never catch up to the Eastern European/Asian superiority. This cognitive dissonance also comes up in past articles where he conveniently ignores the massive amount of doping when heaping praises on Bulgaria (Abadjiev), then Turkey, then China and Kazakhstan, and recently North Korea.

Bud has never once thought to question Roman's assertion that eventually weightlifting training will consist of just the classic lifts when he spoke to him decades ago. If this is the underlying rationale for how Bud views lifting training at its absolute pinnacle, then he is simply molding everything else around this assertion.

[Hawkpeter]

Well its not complaining about people blaming the altitude, this time its the show-up-and-weigh-in lifters. Oh and P.S. America sucks apparently.

https://www.sportivnypress.com/2023/the ... vana-cuba/

I agree, there's surely a better way for the IWF to prepare for the weigh in only situation. I doubt that they will though.

I'm glad the Belorussians got some praise, those athletes did indeed persevere and lift well on the whole.

He touches on something that I wonder if it will come to pass. The strategy of so many lifters just trying to yeet a PB total and not caring about bombing out, will this have longer term effects on their competition performances. At what point do you attempt so many limit reps on a competition platform that you start to accommodate that entirely?

[brian.degennaro]

I agree with his analysis of the Grand Prix. I often found myself wondering "why?" so many times during this competition. Why did teams even bother registering and coming if only to withdraw? A singular or several "low" totals do not negatively impact your ranking, and good practice competing can help build momentum forward to even higher results. Why were these attempts chosen? Why did this event even happen given the lackluster results and disregard from teams? A potentially high level and well run competition was wasted. A why that gets asked at every international competition: why does the US take the attempts that it does? The constant final second changes are so boring and most of the time just lead to delaying the competition and failed attempts.

A lack of training to compete seems overly abundant from observation on the local and national level with US clubs. People do not practice to make successful, increasing weight attempts, irrespective of the percentage. I think "Big Fridays/Saturdays" are a waste when people are allowed to attempt maximums under their own chosen conditions rather than attempting to simulate to any degree the flow of competition. It is fine if someone does not care about competing or how well they do in competition, but it seems readily apparent to me that many coaches and athletes do not understand training to compete and emphasizing accuracy and precision in both execution and weight selection. Many do not even practice competition conditions in training. It could be my own biases and being an armchair observer, but I have seen over the years that many athletes make teams via Hail Mary attempts, only to flounder at the international stage and perform worse than they did domestically. It appears culturally that grit, determination, and adversity are more highly valued here than actually making attempts.

I do not (and likely will never) understand Bud's disdain for tattoos, shorts, muscles, makeup, and women.

[Hawkpeter]

A lack of training to compete seems overly abundant from observation on the local and national level with US clubs. People do not practice to make successful, increasing weight attempts, irrespective of the percentage. I think "Big Fridays/Saturdays" are a waste when people are allowed to attempt maximums under their own chosen conditions rather than attempting to simulate to any degree the flow of competition. It is fine if someone does not care about competing or how well they do in competition, but it seems readily apparent to me that many coaches and athletes do not understand training to compete and emphasizing accuracy and precision in both execution and weight selection. Many do not even practice competition conditions in training. It could be my own biases and being an armchair observer, but I have seen over the years that many athletes make teams via Hail Mary attempts, only to flounder at the international stage and perform worse than they did domestically. It appears culturally that grit, determination, and adversity are more highly valued here than actually making attempts.

^This

Its never a waste of time reminding ourselves of what the sporting task is. When I take on a new lifter, I of course what to get an idea of what their training has been like, but then I want to go over the sporting task and then review whether that has been present in their training.

Relatively heavy single reps, with jumps of 2 to 6 kilos and 2 to 6 minutes in between, on a bar you haven't loaded yourself, on a platform you didn't just warm up on.

You would think that for even the most seasoned veteran, that utilizing an opportunity when a lot of money has been spent going to such a location as Cuba, would make for ideal practice of the sporting task. Likely ego is what causes this.

[strapping]

Truthfully speaking, the Grand Prixs were not necessary events and not originally planned.
They were added as supplementary competitions (i.e. the IWF wanted to make money), should someone be unable to attend 2022 worlds, 2023 continental etc for whatever reason.

Contrast that problematic, with the heavily tattooed, insta-grammed, Youtube, digitized lifters from the affluent western countries.

Bulgaria is the king of the west

[brian.degennaro]

We have a new one, folks! Elastic energy in the classic weightlifting exercises: a coupling of Physics & Physiology

The gist I agree with: utilizing the elasticity of the barbell is a misunderstood and poorly utilized by most. Lip service is just paid to using the whip on the jerk, and very few lifters and even fewer coaches know how to react with the "living" barbell.